1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to semiconductor light emitting devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typical incandescent light sources, while highly energy-inefficient, have a desirable characteristic broad-emission spectrum and a high color-rendering index. In order to mimic these latter attributes in gallium nitride (GaN) based devices, typical current state-of-the-art designs employ indium (In) containing “active” layers that emit light in the near-ultraviolet (UV) to blue region of the spectrum, which is then used to excite phosphor layers to produce the desired broad-spectrum emission.
This approach has certain disadvantages. The process of down-conversion is inherently inefficient due to the Stokes shift (a difference in transition energy of the emission and absorption spectra resulting from defects in the material and, in general, partial non-radiative decay) and poor conversion efficiency. The emission spectrum and intensity are highly sensitive to spatial variations in the phosphor composition and thickness, and may vary greatly with emission direction. Finally, while the diode itself may have a long lifetime, phosphors typically degrade with time, resulting in a variation of the emission spectrum with time.
Nitride-based alloys containing indium can show characteristic emission in a wavelength range from the UV to the infrared part of the spectrum. Thus, in theory, indium-containing alloys may alone be used to produce light sources that emit over this broad spectral range, without the aid of phosphors.
However, using indium-containing alloys to obtain long wavelength emission (blue to infrared) has its own problems; primary among them is that depositing layers with a high indium content causes significant degradation of the material quality, which is detrimental to device functioning and performance. Thus, it is currently not possible to make very efficient nitride-based green, yellow or red light emitting diodes (LEDs), as well as lasers. Further, current designs proposing methods to obtain “white” light without the aid of phosphors typically rely on a high-indium content layer deposited under conditions that result in poor material quality.
The present invention described herein seeks to address the two broad issues discussed above. First, surface texturing allows an indium-containing layer emitting at a specific wavelength to be deposited under conditions that promote improved material quality and higher efficiency. Second, by suitable choice of parameters such as the ratio of textured to non-textured area and control of the texture pattern and dimensions, as well as a suitable choice of epitaxial growth conditions, this invention may be used to obtain strong light emission at two or more peak wavelengths from different areas of the same device. Selective texturing of the surface may thus be used to produce a phosphor-free “white” light source, wherein the indium-containing light-emitting layer is deposited under conditions that do not compromise the material quality.